Joint Innovation Projects

Linking ambitious founders with multinational companies to accelerate the pace of innovation and economic growth in the Blue Economy, resulting in a cleaner, more sustainable world

Joint Innovation Projects provide early stage founders the incredible opportunity to gain insight into specific ocean sustainability issues, while building meaningful relationships with global ecosystem partners and multinational industry leaders. These projects accelerate the pace and growth of innovation in Canada’s Blue Economy by empowering founders to work on scaleable problems for industry and leverage their entrepreneurial mindset to build cutting-edge, sustainable solutions to reinvigorate existing businesses, create new verticals and improve ocean health.  

Bringing together world-class, multinational companies and global ecosystem partners, such as OceanExchange, Vancouver Maritime Centre for Climate, The Pier, COAST, NOIA, Ignite, and the Association of British Columbia Marine Industries, Ocean Startup Project will match ambitious founders and early stage startups with projects, and facilitate initiatives that drive innovation and boost commercial success. Joint Innovation Projects aim to spur growth (industry, startup and ecosystem), collaboration, sustainability and regeneration, and support the creation of new and massively scaleable ocean startups. 

Participating founders will receive programming, support, mentorship, guidance and funding from the Ocean Startup Project, in addition to the networking, marketing, and experiential benefits Joint Innovation Projects provide. 

Applicants do not need to be part of a startup team or have an idea to apply; individuals looking to participate will be paired with complementary talent to maximize success of the projects. Early stage startup teams must be pre-revenue to be considered. We encourage applications from prospective and existing founders with diverse skillsets, backgrounds and an interest in ocean sustainability. 

We are not currently accepting expressions of interest for Joint Innovation Projects.

Joint Innovation Projects are connecting:

Global ecosystem partners

Ecosystem partners take on an exciting leadership role in the innovation ecosystem by working closely with industry to achieve collective goals and objectives for the project; manage relationships and ensure all stakeholders achieve desired outcomes, encourage greater innovation, better ocean health and a stronger domestic and international ecosystem.

Multinational industry

Discover new verticals or reinvigorate other areas of existing businesses by collaborating with startup founders who will look at the problem with a completely different lens to help find/build transformative solutions.

Early stage founders

Better understand specific challenges industry faces, and build transformative, disruptive tech solutions that will invigorate or reinvigorate industries, create new verticals and boost ocean health. Receive funds, access to resources, commercial and technical mentorship and support, and so much more. Startup applicants must be early stage and pre-revenue to participate.

Ocean Startup Project

The Ocean Startup Project is the catalyst for Joint Innovation Projects and will project manage these collaborative initiatives to ensure all parties are getting the most out of the experience. We will also recruit and qualify startup teams and support the early stage startups with programming and funding.

Are you a founder or early stage startup looking to participate in Joint Innovation Projects?

Sign up for updates.

* indicates required

Please select all the ways you would like to hear from Ocean Startup Project:

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. For information about our privacy practices, please visit our Privacy Statement page.

We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By clicking below to subscribe, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing. Learn more about Mailchimp's privacy practices here.

*By completing this form you are signing up to receive our emails and can unsubscribe at any time.

Sign Up!